Campus Ministry Conference Focus on Diversity
April 14, 2009 -- Christian Reformed Church campus ministers from across North America will gather in New Jersey next month to celebrate and to learn methods to help support the diversity of God’s kingdom.
The Annual Conference of the Christian Reformed Campus Ministers Association (CRCMA) takes place May 19-22 at the Xavier Retreat Center on the campus of St. Elizabeth College in Convent Station, N.J.
With the theme “Celebrating the Dance of Diversity in God’s Kingdom,” the three-day event will include a Dance of Racial Reconciliation (DORR) diversity training, as well as a panel discussion of how to apply that training in campus ministry.
DORR was developed under the auspices of the CRC’s Office of Race Relations. Based on biblical teaching that racism is sin, it brings together people from all parts of the church to participate in exercises and discussions designed to help them understand and undo the effects of racial prejudice.
Conference attendees will also visit New York University in nearby New York City, and will spend time at a Christian Reformed Home Missions church plant City Grace Church in lower Manhattan.
“The conference is a chance for campus pastors, students leaders, and others interested in campus ministry to gather together to talk about God’s faithfulness and the kingdom work that stands before us,” says Jamie VanderBerg, campus minister at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. “As partners in God's reconciliation project, those interested in campus ministry are coming together to share best practices, celebrate God's faithfulness and challenge each other to embrace others across cultural and ethnic divides.”
Speakers at the conference will include Rev. Esteban Lugo, director of the CRCNA Office of Race Relations; Rev. Dr. Jae Park, a Korean campus pastor and church planter for Grace Community Chapel CRC, and Al Santino, former Campus Crusade minister and core team member for Home Missions-funded church plant Open Door Fellowship of East Harlem.
Rev. Hernan Zapata-Thomack, who leads the CRC Hispanic Campus Ministry at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, N.J., and New Jersey City University in Jersey City, N.J., will also speak.
The CRC campus minister’s association is a collection of 30 U.S. and Canadian campus ministries that have agreed to work together in a covenant relationship to participate in God’s redemptive work.
--Ben Van Houten, Christian Reformed Home Missions Communications